Chapter 1

It was quiet.

Of course, it was always quiet. There wasn't much around to make noise near the house at four in the afternoon; not for all the ten years Rosemary had lived there. Still, it had started bothering her recently. There was a new four-in-the-afternoon silence that had set in, and it seemed to permeate the entire house. It was so deafening that Rosemary couldn't even bring herself to pick up a pencil and start on homework, though she knew it would break the silence somewhat. It was certainly a silence that deserved to be broken, shattered into a million pieces. Funny how silence falling and silence breaking meant completely opposite things, though one naturally followed the other.

And then it broke. The silence fell away and Rosemary came out of the stupor that the silence always sent her into. Though what had saved her, she wasn't quite sure. The sound was completely alien to her; a sort of creaking and whooshing, sounding so far off that she wasn't clear on how it had even reached her. She supposed it didn't have much to compete with. In any case, she was grateful. Far from encouraging her to go back to her work, however, the sound made her curious. Rosemary was familiar with all the sounds of the neighborhood; cars, lawn mowers, birds, and wind rustling leaves mostly covered it. This sound was foreign and, unfortunately, the most interesting thing to come to Rosemary's neighborhood all week.

Leaving a note that said only Going for a bike ride, be back soon. - Rose on the front door, Rosemary set out on her bike. She had no particular destination, and didn't hold out much hope for finding the source of the sound, but was willing to find any excuse to leave the house. She passed a few neighbors out working in their lawns, but honestly, no one of note lived on the street.

Rosemary was finally beginning to enjoy the breeze and whir of the ride when she saw an unfamiliar pedestrian ahead of her. He was walking, somewhat bow-legged, on the edge of the gutter, looking around himself with unabashed curiosity. Rosemary rang her bell and muttered something like, "'Scuse me," as she went around him, but stopped abruptly when she heard the man's voice.

"Sorry. Oh, actually, do you think you could tell me something?" It wasn't the words that stopped her. It was his English accent. Rosemary couldn't distinctly remember a time when she had heard and English accent in real life, but she was certain it had never come out of the blue like this.

She immediately turned the handlebars of the bike around to face him, hoping she didn't sound overeager in her response. "Sure, what?" So American. Why do I have to say sure like such an American?

"What's the deal with this place? Anything unusual happen here, anything at all? Because it seems to me that something is definitely off about it." Oh God. His face was handsome, and even more English than his voice. People didn't have that kind of face in America, did they? He was young, too, not and old man as she had at first suspected. And besides, he was wearing a bow tie, suspenders, and high-water pants. WHO ARE YOU? Rosemary's brain screamed.

"Um. You're unusual, but other than that… no. Nothing unusual. We're actually aggressively usual here." There. That sounded all right. The man seemed to think so, too, because his young face smiled with old eyes.

"Always the ordinary places where the strange stuff happens, isn't it?" He said to no one in particular. "Can't I get an easy one?"

"An easy what?"

"Oh, you know," He said vaguely, turning to go.

"Where are you going?"

"Thought I'd have a bit of a look around, see if anything pops out at me." He turned a corner, aimlessly, and muttered to himself, "Definitely off. Too… something."

As he walked away, Rosemary felt a wave of panic. If she let him out of her sight, she might never see him again, and she didn't think she could stand that. She had a strange idea that if she let him go, she would miss something wonderful. Just speak. Say something, anything!

"I can show you around if you want," Rosemary called out, much to her own relief. The man turned. "I've lived here since I was five, so I know how to get anywhere."

"All right then, come along. I'm the Doctor, by the way."

Rosemary waited a few seconds, waiting for the obvious second part to the sentence. It didn't come. "I feel like you want me to ask what your name is."

"I would like that." He laughed, smiling with those eyes that were much too old for the rest of the face.

"Okay, Doctor Who?"

"Just 'the Doctor'." He looked almost gleeful when he said it.

"Oh, come on, that's not fair. If you're going to make me ask, at least deliver with a good name. Like, my dad once knew a doctor whose last name was Sterns, but then she got married and now her last name is Lively!"

"That is wonderful! I'm quite sorry I don't have anything like that to tell you, but I just go by 'the Doctor'."

"I like it. It's very efficient. I'm Rosemary, by the way, but you can call me Rose."

A brief spasm of something like pain crossed his face, but he quickly regained himself. "I'll stick with Rosemary, I think. Or maybe Mary. Has anyone ever called you Mary?"

"No," Laughed Rosemary, "But it's fine."

"Wonderful. Come along then, Mary," Said the Doctor, breaking into a skip. Mary followed on her bike. "Let's go exploring!"